


One More Step

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Old West, POV J. D. Dunne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-06-15
Updated: 2001-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:02:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JD discovers the road to adulthood has more surprises than he'd thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Step

The bay's coarse mane whipped against JD Dunne's cheek as he leaned low over its neck while its powerful strides ate the ground. He'd made good time; everything would be all right. It would goddamned be all right. The words were a litany in his mind set to the rhythm of the hoofs against the stony ground. Get help and it would be all right. And he was doing that, so everything was going to work out okay.

At least he was on the move instead of still back at the shack feeling helpless. He'd leaped at the chance to escape just standing around watching and waiting, relieved when the others let him be the one to ride full pelt for Nathan and Chris: fetch the older members of the group, the clever ones, the ones who could make a difference.

The bay was sweaty and dust-streaked when they rode down Four Corners' main street. He flung himself to the ground at the southern end, taking only a moment to wrap the reins around the hitching post before sprinting for Nathan's clinic. Barreling around a corner, he careened into a hard, tall body. Strong hands steadied him and he looked up into Chris Larabee's amused face.

"What's the rush?"

"Nathan--gotta get Nathan."

Chris's smile disappeared. "What happened? Didn't expect you boys back till midday. Something go wrong with the prisoner transfer?"

"No, all that went fine. It was coming back, this little slide, a rockslide. Chris, I gotta get back right away with Nathan!"

"Nathan ain't here. He's over to Minerva, seeing a doc over there that's got some stuff to teach him. Won't be back for four days, easy."

JD slumped against the wall. Damn; oh, damn. He looked up into Chris's frowning face. "Vin said you should come, anyway. He keeps asking for you. Can't figure out why. We were thinking maybe he had a message or something he wanted to tell you. He just won't stop."

"Who?"

"Ezra."

For an instant, he thought he saw something flash in Chris's narrowed eyes. Then all he saw was Chris's back and he had to jog to keep up with the long strides heading for the livery. He detoured to grab his horse and towed him behind. When he reached the livery, Chris was already saddling his black. JD made quick arrangements with Tiny to take care of his horse and moved toward Nathan's sorrel in the far stall.

"Nathan took the stage, huh?"

"Where are they?"

"Uh, at your place. We got that far, but Vin and Buck figured we shouldn't move him no farther. He don't seem that bad hurt except for a whole lot of bruises and this deep gash on his leg, but he hit his head pretty hard, I guess. When we pulled the rocks off him, his face was all bloody and he ain't woke up proper. Now he's fevered some and he just keeps saying your name."

He paused, recalling the horror as they'd watched the rockslide, watched Ezra try to leap his horse out of the way and fail and get hit and buried.

"We had to shoot his horse." He shuddered as the picture of the gelding's dogged efforts to pull itself to its feet with a broken foreleg played again in his mind.

Chris was swinging up into his saddle with a creak and clink of leather and spurs. JD scrambled to finish saddling up. Even so, he had to push to catch up to Chris after leaving the corral. Once clear of town, Chris settled them into a steady lope that ate up the miles, but wasn't punishing to man or beast.

JD appreciated the even pace, stretching to try to ease his tense muscles and aching back. He'd pushed hard to get to town and it was a few hours' ride back out, and he hadn't managed much sleep the night before. They'd arrived at the shack just after dark. He'd looked after the horses, leaving the more difficult task of settling Ezra inside to Buck and Vin. After that, they'd had to haul water and heat it and tear up what they could scrounge that was clean for bandages for Ezra's head and thigh. Later, they'd taken turns washing him down, trying to cool the fever.

He didn't have much experience with sick-room duties. Buck had just told him it was part of being self-reliant in the territories and it was time he got used to it. Of course, Buck was pretty damn tired by then, having had to support Ezra before him on his big gray all the way to the shack since they hadn't brought a spare horse. Still, sitting alone by the bedside in the dark of the night, with the lantern turned low and only Vin's and Buck's quiet snores and stirrings, and Ezra's occasional moaned repetitions of Chris's name, to break the mantling quiet, had unsettled him more than he'd expected, like the first time he'd watched a hanging. And that'd been a cheery memory for such a night.

Lonely was what it had been. Lonely, and frightening with it. He'd been scared he might do something wrong and Ezra might get worse. Or die. He'd known that wasn't really a possibility--or so Vin had said--but the hours were ill-lit and still and his imagination got as heated as Ezra's scraped cheek.

All told, it'd been a relief to wake at dawn to hear Vin and Buck talking about fetching Nathan and volunteering himself for the job.

Chris slowed so his horse could pick its way down the rock-strewn trail along the side of a mesa. Following, JD watched the lean back in the striped serape. He was half-surprised at Chris's urgency, given it was Ezra who was hurt. Not that Chris and Ezra didn't seem to like each other. They just didn't spend much time together so it was hard to know how they rubbed along. Not like Chris and Vin, who sometimes seemed stuck together like they were glued and had a knack of understanding each other without many words. And Buck and Chris were old friends from going on fourteen years ago. Staggering to think the two of them had been friends just a handful of years less than he'd been alive. That was one of those troubling thoughts he'd just as soon not think about much.

The problem was the others all seemed to think about it a lot. They all seemed to think he needed fathering. Well, older-brothering, at any rate. That was one of the reasons he liked to spend time with Casey Wells: she was one of the few people in his life who was younger than he was. He had all sorts of experience up on her and all sorts of things he could teach her, even if she was already almost as good as he was at knife-throwing and riding and fishing. Not that he'd ever admit it, of course.

Most of all, though, she was just _nice_ to be with. He just plain liked spending time with Casey, the two of them relaxed and comfortable together. A little like the way Chris and Vin seemed to be together--though not quite the same. Casey being a girl under those britches she usually wore, there were a lot more possibilities...for one day. More like Buck and all his lady-friends, even if most of them weren't exactly ladies, so to speak. All right, so maybe more like Chris and Mary Travis. They didn't spend all that much time together, but he could see the interest in Mary's eyes when she looked at Chris. And Chris, who didn't smile at just anyone, tended to smile at Mary.

Though he couldn't say he minded being older-brothered, at least to a point. Made him proud a man like Chris Larabee even let him ride with them, never mind treated him like a friend. He'd never met anybody who deserved respect as much as Chris did. Chris knew the right and wrong of things, and he knew how to read people, too, like he was seeing them clear down to their bones. More to the point, he was, bar none, the best shot in the territory, with the power in his fast draw to back up his will. Chris Larabee had a wealth of skills a man would be fortunate to learn.

And Buck, hell. Buck had taught him a lot and would go on teaching him. He wouldn't trade Buck as a kind of foster brother for anyone else in the world. Buck also knew the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of all manner of things; he just didn't take life as seriously as Chris did. Buck hadn't needed to.

He looked again at the straight back in front of him as Chris urged his horse around a clump of sun-bleached junipers, and felt a familiar awed sadness. No matter how lonely he ever felt, or how much he missed his ma, he still couldn't imagine the raw agony of loss Chris carried like a brand since his family's murder. Even Buck couldn't breach the barricades Chris erected sometimes to shut people out, or the rarer times when he shut himself in with a whiskey bottle. Chris didn't slacken the reins on himself often, which made the instances when he did the more disturbing.

"Guilt can be a prodigious burden." Ezra had spoken in a low and heavy voice, as though he knew exactly what he was talking about, one late night as they'd watched Vin and Nathan haul Chris out of the saloon. Chris, who sometimes got ornery when he drank, had been passive that night. Either that, or too drunk to put up much of a fight.

He didn't understand right off what Ezra meant. Only after thinking about it had he realized Chris must blame himself for the deaths of his wife and son. Wrapped guilt like a cloak of chains about himself because of being in Mexico when his house was burned, and his family with it; maybe he figured he'd've saved them if he'd been home, and maybe he was right about that. He likely blamed himself even more because the fire had been intended to kill him, not his wife and son at all according to Cletus Fowler--if a murderer's last confession before burning himself up could be trusted.

Maybe, once in a while, whiskey was the only thing that made the screams stop echoing inside Chris's head. And that was a shivery thought JD didn't want to contemplate too hard.

Buck had given up trying to heal Chris. He'd just plain done all he could and ridden away a year or so after the fire. From the ashes of those years, Chris had emerged as the steel-eyed gunman who met and matched every challenger. The distinctive Colt with the bone grips in the silver-studded black gunbelt had become the trademark of the new Chris Larabee: ex-rancher, ex-husband, and ex-father, seeming as much a part of him as the hip it rested on, the fingers that wielded it. Chris could draw with a speed and shoot with an accuracy that made a man catch his breath in wonder, just as easy and natural as twitching his little finger--except it probably hadn't been natural to the old Chris Larabee. That ability was something earned, and learned.

It was a mastery JD longed to learn, but Chris wouldn't teach.

All any of them ever wanted to do was tell him how to take care, how he shouldn't ever break cover in a gun battle, how to defend himself. You wouldn't believe six men could have so much advice to offer. He'd told Buck they ought to start a column in Mary's newspaper giving advice, but Buck had just grinned. Six big brothers all seeming to think they had a mission in life to educate one JD Dunne in the ways of the world.

Though it was only five, really. Ezra didn't bother with that kind of advice for the most part. Ezra was the only one who'd been willing to shake his hand when Chris had finally grudgingly let JD join them since he seemed, as Chris had put it, determined to die young. Chris had just walked away from his outstretched hand and Vin had ignored it, but Ezra had shaken it and made him feel like one of the group. Ezra generally made him feel like an adult and an equal, other than confusing him with his fancy words. But he didn't pay it any mind because Ezra used the same language with everyone. He couldn't understand half of what Ezra said sometimes, but he trusted Ezra wasn't making fun of him. He just trusted that, somehow, just as he trusted all six of them to be there to back him up if he needed help, just like he'd back them up. Ezra had deserted them the first time they'd worked together, but he'd never done it again. Now, even Chris seemed to have gotten over his distrust of Ezra. Mostly.

So, he shouldn't be surprised Chris was steely-faced and making as good speed as possible to reach his shack in the hills even though Ezra was the one who was hurt. Ezra was one of them, no different from each of their group. Chris just tended to show more concern about Buck and Vin, and Nathan, who'd almost got lynched the first time they met, and JD himself, and even Josiah. Josiah was a good few years older than Chris and well used to the pitfalls and lamentations on the rocky road of life--to quote Josiah himself in one of his more high-faluting moments when he could rival Ezra for sounding absurd. Josiah's lessons tended toward the philosophical. That meant vague as hell and not an awful lot of use in dealing with that rocky road Josiah professed to know.

His shoulders slumped as his mama's voice sounded in his head, telling him not to be impatient, that there were lots of steps along the road to growing up and he'd get there just fine if he didn't break a leg trying to jump too many of those steps at once. He half-smiled, the sadness lifting, at his sudden sense of a connection between big, grizzled, enigmatic Josiah and his petite and practical mother. The only dream she'd indulged was sending him to college one day. Instead, he'd spent her savings on a stagecoach ticket west and two fine guns and a good horse, choosing his own road after she died and making his way along it with the help of a group of the most unlikely big brothers anyone could imagine.

And one of those brothers was hurt and the one who could have helped the most was away. He wasn't sure Chris could make a difference no matter how quickly they got to the shack. Maybe Ezra did have some kind of message for Chris and it would ease his mind to tell it, but it seemed like a long shot. What possible message could Ezra have for Chris? But it was Vin who'd insisted he bring Chris, and Vin tended to be able to look into people and come up with answers in an uncanny way.

"It's just watching and listening careful," Vin had explained to him once. "That's all. There's no big trick to it. The Kiowa know the value of patience."

He'd been trying to learn that particular lesson the Kiowa had taught Vin, but it was hard. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't seem to catch the whispers Vin heard. He suspected it might not be a skill everybody could learn, but a special quality in Vin himself. Just the same as no matter how hard and long and often he practiced, he knew he'd never quite beat Chris in a draw. And no matter how many tricks Ezra taught him, he'd never defeat the gambler at his own game, no more than he'd ever match Nathan in healing or Josiah in philosophy.

A man's got to find his own road, mark his own path step by step.

Though he might at least be able to match Buck's skills with the ladies. Or with one lady, at least, since he was only interested in one. He grappled for a few moments trying to twist Casey into the image of a lady, then gave it up. He really didn't want a lady; neither Buck's type of lady nor Mary Travis's type. He just wanted Casey. A smile bloomed. He reckoned figuring out what type of girl suited you might be one of those important steps along the road his mother had talked about. He'd managed that step all on his own.

Chris's powerful black breaking into a lope startled him back to the present. They were in open country, covering the last few miles before the shack. He kicked Nathan's sturdy mount into a matching pace. As he drew abreast, he glimpsed Chris's face set in hard, unrevealing lines. A chill shivered down his spine. What would it feel like to lose Casey in a fire? And not just Casey as he knew her now, before they'd had a chance to get anywhere together, but Casey after they'd been married for years and had a child? What kind of lesson could there be in how to survive that loss? If, that was, Chris had actually survived at all and not just become someone entirely new.

He had no desire ever to learn some lessons, and hoped with all his soul never to take certain steps.

Buck came out onto the porch as they rode up. JD gladly relinquished the reins to him, filling him in on Nathan while Chris strode past them into the shack without a word or glance.

"Hell," Buck sighed.

"He's no better?"

Buck shrugged. "Fever's down and he woke up some, but he still ain't quite back with us. Been sick to his stomach, too. Go rest, JD. You did good, getting back here so fast."

He went inside as Buck led the horses away. He blinked sun-dazzled eyes that couldn't see much at first in the poor light that came in the small windows. The shack would've been cool but for the fire in the stove; as it was, it felt stuffy. Chris was finishing up telling Vin about Nathan.

JD looked at the rough bedstead against the north wall. He could see a mound of blankets and restless shifting under them and hear soft panting broken by muttering.

"Good you came, anyway," Vin said. "Seems to have a need for you."

He glanced back at the two men and stopped, still as a mouse frozen before a hoot-owl, as they met eye to eye. He saw some message being passed, the way Vin and Chris did, Vin's face steady and quiet, Chris's stern. And just their eyes speaking, calm, bright blue meshed with hard green.

All over again, he wondered at that kind of closeness. No matter how much time he and Buck spent together, he knew they'd never be able to talk to each other silently that way, seeming to get across whole speeches in looks and blinks and head tilts. He tried to picture Casey and him knowing each other that well, and wondered if Chris and his wife had been able to talk to each other without talking. He thought perhaps they had.

As he watched Chris and Vin, he couldn't think it'd be anything but disquieting to be able to guess at another person's thoughts and know his own were an open book.

The three of them stood in a frozen tableau. The back of his neck tingled with tension, and he had no idea why. His fingers twitched as though ready to go for his guns. He shifted his eyes back and forth between Chris and Vin's still faces, but he couldn't read a damned thing. He had no idea what was happening, or what might happen, until Vin raised his hand in a two-fingered salute and the tension eased like mist rolling away from a lake. Vin bowed his head as though he were tipping the hat he wasn't wearing, his eyes still steady on Chris's. And Vin took a step back, his face still calm. JD let out a breath he'd only distantly been aware of holding and shivered as sweat chilled under his arms.

Chris turned on his heel with a rattle of spurs and walked to the bed. He sat without hesitation, showing none of JD's uncertainty when Buck had set him to minding Ezra. Part of being self-reliant, Buck had said. JD reckoned there were few people more self-reliant than Chris Larabee, or more capable of doing what was necessary, answering whatever need Ezra had that none of the rest of them could satisfy. He watched as Chris turned the blankets back, exposing Ezra's rumpled head. Ezra had kept switching between chills and heat all night. It felt cruel to force him to stay covered when he was burning up, but JD knew it was necessary.

Ezra didn't look much like himself. His face seemed more swollen than earlier, bruised and cut on his right cheek and temple where he'd hit the ground. When they'd pulled the shale off him, he'd had his arms covering his head, so he'd managed to protect himself that much. The worst damage must have happened in the first hard fall as his horse had lost its footing on the tumbling rocks.

Chris turned the covers back farther, revealing the scratches and bruising on Ezra's bare shoulders. They'd found his back was banged up even worse. Though, in truth, none of the scrapes and other injuries were anything special. Man got as much being thrown from an unbroken green horse. The worrying thing was the way Ezra had fallen on his head, and mostly how he just wasn't properly waking up.

Ezra shifted, his head rolling on the pillow, muttering in a hoarse voice, still just the one word: "Chris. Chris."

Chris bent over the bed. He'd shed the serape. JD could see his muscles shift beneath his tan shirt. Ezra had freed a hand from the blankets and was pushing at his face, while his breathing was uneven and hitching. Chris skimmed his fingers over Ezra's left shoulder, then caught the hand, the way Buck had tried to do the night before. JD watched as Chris's broad thumb rubbed Ezra's scratched hand, the skin smoother between the bruising. Ezra was good with the many guns he hid about himself, a fast draw and an accurate shot, but his hands were those of a man who spent more hours in the saloon drawing cards than out in the weather shooting and riding. Chris's hand was brown and scarred and sinewy. He held Ezra's firmly, not letting him pull away the way Buck had the night before.

"Chris--"

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm here, Ezra. It's all right."

Now maybe they'd find out what that danged message was Ezra seemed hellbent on delivering. If it did nothing for Ezra, it would at least relieve JD's curiosity. He leaned closer, listening. Listening and watching, just like Vin said. He saw Ezra's eyelids flutter. The right eye wouldn't open fully, but the other fixed on Chris leaning over him.

"Chris?"

"I'm here. Everything's all right."

"Chris...."

"I've got you. It's all right."

Chris's voice was low and steady. Nothing unusual about it, except for maybe being a little warmer than his usual tone to Ezra. But, then, Ezra wasn't usually sick out of his mind. He was normally sharp-eyed and silver-tongued, weaving walls of sarcasm and wit that Chris either found amusing or ignored like a midge flitting around his head.

Ezra seemed to be struggling to sit up, still just repeating Chris's name in breathy gasps. JD sighed; no damn message, after all. And how were they going to get him better without Nathan? He was gnawing at this worry when his attention snapped back to the bed. Was Chris lifting Ezra? Yeah, he was. He was slipping his arms underneath Ezra and heaving him up. JD shifted, gnawing his lip. Buck and Vin had made it clear last night he was to keep Ezra lying in the bed, still as possible, no matter what contrary notions Ezra might get in his fevered head.

Ezra's good arm slid around Chris's neck. He pressed his face into Chris's throat. Chris's arms closed around his back, his left arm crooked as he cradled Ezra's head. Sitting on the bed, the blankets fallen in a heap around Ezra, Chris drew Ezra's naked, grimy body close and murmured in a deep, soft voice unlike any JD had heard from him: "I'm here. It's all right. I've got you."

He'd never seen Chris touch anyone like that, close and tight and natural as breathing, no matter how badly they were hurt. Buck, now, Buck liked to touch people; but Chris usually pulled away. Chris liked to keep a space between himself and other folk. He'd only ever seen Chris let Vin and Buck close, and little Billy Travis. And whores at Wickestown or Purgatorio, but that was a different matter entirely. Even Mary, who could stand close to him without his moving away, never got anything but impersonal touches.

And Ezra was almost as bad. He wasn't as outright prickly, but he didn't seem to like to touch much. He generally kept his hands to himself and never appreciated being manhandled, even on the rare occasions when he got drunk. No way of knowing how he was with a lady, of Buck's sort or any other, because he'd never seen Ezra with one, other than tipping his hat to Mary and other respectable women. Ezra'd spent time with Emily and the other whores when they'd been in town, but that'd been all business, the way Ezra usually was. He kept his Southern formality wrapped around him like a barbed-wire fence. Anyone who tried to trespass stood a good chance of getting a bleeding hand.

So what was Ezra doing throwing himself at Chris? And what the blue blazes was Chris doing holding him like that? Rocking him and...and cradling him as though he were six-year-old Billy?

Chris's hand was tracing a path between the bruises on Ezra's back. It looked soothing, and it seemed to be what Ezra needed. He'd fallen silent at last, resting slumped against the support of Chris's body, held safe in Chris's hands.

JD wondered abruptly if Chris would hold him like that if he were hurt. He wondered what it would feel like. Safe, maybe. Safe and soothing in a world of heat and pain. Maybe, deep down, all men were little boys like Billy when they were hurt, or at least confused in their minds the way Ezra was right now. Maybe Chris understood because of the world of hurt he'd been through himself. He might just know instinctively what JD needed if he were hurt the way Ezra was--

Chris bent his head and pressed a kiss to the point of Ezra's left shoulder. JD's breath caught in his throat. Chris pressed another kiss to Ezra's ear before he murmured words into it that JD couldn't hear.

"God--" he started to say, but it came out strangled.

Vin turned and speared him with eyes like diamond chips, then jerked his head.

Before he could figure out what that jerk meant, a strong hand closed around his upper arm and he was tugged to the door and outside. He hadn't even been aware Buck had come inside until that moment.

Buck shut the door and pulled him along the porch a couple of steps before JD managed to pull himself free.

"What--? Did you see that?"

"Not here. Come on." Buck's voice was curt and he didn't wait, just strode off the porch and across the yard to the barn leaving JD to trail along like a trained pup.

Words tumbled out of him as soon as he reached the shadowed interior of the barn where Buck was waiting. "Damn. What the hell was Chris doing? I sure ain't never seen Nathan kissing things better! Unless it's on Rain, maybe. God, Buck, what is the matter with Chris?"

"Will you shut the fuck up?"

Startled at the anger contorting Buck's normally good-humored face, he fell back a step and swallowed himself into silence. He watched warily as Buck strode around the barn combing his fingers through his thick, dark hair. Buck finally stopped and faced him across a space of several feet, shaking his head, the anger falling from his face and resignation replacing it.

"Sometimes I forget just how young you are. You really don't have a clue, do you?"

"Me! This has nothing to do with me. And I'm not all that young! I know a hell of a lot more than any of you think."

"Yeah, you know all about the ways of the world, don't you, son? Know all the things men get up to in the dark of the night? Know all about the things men feel and the things men need, and all the things that go on in a man's heart and in his soul?"

"You're about as clear as a pot of chili." He darted his eyes away from Buck's knowing gaze, prickles of discomfort ghosting over his flesh.

Buck chuckled, but it sounded raspy and ended in a sigh. "Oh, Lord." He took a breath and hunkered down, the movement drawing JD's eyes back to him. "I keep forgetting you lived a bit of a sheltered life back there in the east with your ma. Thought I'd only have to do this once, about Casey."

He slid down to sit against the wall opposite Buck, more confused and warier than ever. So, all right, he'd needed Buck to explain a few things to him before he'd understood how to court Casey properly, and he probably wouldn't ever have managed to ask her out on that first date without Josiah's taking him every step of the way, but he wasn't a green kid.

"I don't see what Casey has to do with any of this--"

"Well, that's the thing, ain't it? You don't see."

He stared straight into Buck's dark eyes. "Why don't you just stop treating me like I'm Billy and tell me what you think I don't know? Like what the hell any of this has to do with Casey? And why Chris is acting so...so strange--not to mention Ezra--"

"Well, see now, you've got all those special feelings for Casey you don't feel for anyone else. Right? You know all about those kinds of feelings a man can have for a girl and the way he wants to be with her in all sorts of ways. Be with her intimately, too. You know a bit about that, now, don't you, kid? Got all that hot young blood in you telling you what you'd like to do with Casey."

"Buck! Jesus." He dropped his gaze to the ground and scuffed at the dirt. Not another of those conversations. He wasn't an idiot; he'd listened the first time.

"And you know it's the same kind of feelings Nathan has for Rain and like I get for, well, all sorts of pretty ladies." The familiar humor laced through Buck's soft, rich voice lifted his spirits. Nothing could be too bad with Buck sounding like himself, never taking anything seriously for long.

"Sometimes, though, men have those feelings for other men. You aware of that, kid?"

He lost his breath like being plunged into a trough of icy water. He couldn't find a damned word to say, which Buck seemed to realize and kept right on talking.

"Maybe it don't happen much back east, at least not so's you'd be aware of it, but out on the trail, or in the territories where women are scarce, it ain't all that uncommon for a man to turn to another man."

That brought his head up with a snap that hurt his neck. "Shit, Buck! You never-- I mean, you like the ladies. Like 'em a lot." His voice sounded desperate in his own ears.

Buck smiled, a gentle look settling on his face. "Oh, I do like the ladies. Raised up in a whorehouse with my ma and a passel of fine-feathered aunties and sisters, oh, yeah, I loved the ladies from my first breath and I've never grown out of that wonderful feeling. I love the way they smell and the way they feel and the way they sound. Most of all, I love the way they _are_. Inside, you know? Not inside their bodies, but inside them, in their hearts and their souls."

Buck's voice hardened. "But when I was on the trail, young and hot-blooded like you are now, going weeks without seeing any ladies, yeah, I turned to men sometimes. And it was fine. We've all got bodies, JD, and we're all made for pleasure. For me, though, there wasn't the soul-touching I get with a lady. That's what was missing. It was just sex and a pleasure in the body.

"For some men, though, it's more. Some men can feel that inner touch with both men and women; a few can only feel it with another man. It's just different ways people have. Different ways of feeling, different ways of needing."

Buck's eyes were set on him with the fathomless dark of a well JD couldn't look away from. He felt strangled, struggling for a clear breath, his heartbeat a roar in his ears. The whole world seemed on a sudden tilt because it wasn't just a bunch of faceless cowboys out on the range Buck was talking about. It wasn't just what strangers did or felt, which wouldn't damned well matter.

"Now, Chris," Buck continued inexorably, his velvet-smooth voice as soft as a lullaby, "I've known a long time. Chris is one who can make that touch with both men and women. That's what I reckoned a long time ago and nothing's proved otherwise to me since."

"You and he--never--"

"Nah. We were never really on the trail together, at least not when we were both free. We got together not all that long before he met Sarah and started courting her. Different circumstances. Could've happened, I suppose, but it never did."

Well, that was a relief. Of a sort. He supposed. He squeezed his eyes shut as Buck continued.

"Ezra I don't know so well, but I suspect he's one who makes that touch only with other men. He ain't much of a one for the ladies, despite his fancy ways and handsome face and that sweet Southern charm of his. He's real sensitive toward women, when they need it, but he don't let none of them get close to him."

"He don't let no one get close to him!"

A silence hung heavy between them for a moment before Buck said, "Didn't seem to."

JD scrambled to his feet, needing to walk off the energy fizzing along his nerves and making him feel like one big twitch. He paced, aware of Buck's steady gaze and Buck's patience, waiting on him.

"It don't make no sense. Chris was in love with his wife!"

"Still is, probably. But she's dead and half of him died with her. Now it seems like the other half of him's found what it needs with Ezra, so I gotta respect that."

"But why not Mary? It makes more sense than...than _Ezra_."

"I don't know, kid. I don't know what happens inside another man's soul. Maybe the part of Chris's soul that could touch a woman's was what died in him. Maybe there's no room left inside him for another woman."

"It sounds like a bunch of crap." Anger sparked in him as he strode back and forth, unable to still himself. "It's all just a bunch of hogwash. And even if you know what you're talking about, then it don't explain why it's Ezra. They got nothing in common! Why wouldn't Chris be with Vin?"

Buck pushed himself to his feet and stretched his back for a long, muscle-easing moment before leaning against a post, tall and lanky and composed. "I don't know. Maybe Vin didn't want it. Maybe Chris never offered." He shrugged. "Maybe Chris and Vin've got too much in common."

"That don't make no more sense than anything else you've said!"

He was forced to a stop when Buck stepped into his path, staring down at him from his seven inches extra height. "Chris is a real private person, JD, and so's Ezra underneath all that gab he uses as a smokescreen. I think they've maybe got a hell of a lot more in common than any of us are likely to know, and it ain't none of our business, anyways. How come you like Casey better'n any of the other girls? How come Nathan fell for Rain right away? How come I ain't found the one special lady for myself yet? There ain't no sure way of saying what makes one person the right one for another. Vin and Chris get along good together, we all know that. How come? What makes 'em able to read each other the way they do? I don't know. I haven't any idea. And now we know Chris and Ezra are close, too, in a different way. I don't know why that happened for them neither, but I'm glad because Chris needs it. That man needs a family, whatever family he can get, and someone he can let down all them barriers with. And Ezra probably does, too. Maybe that's what they got in common."

He blinked up at Buck's intent face, feeling like he'd been dunked several times in that ice-water trough. "Geez, Buck," he managed, shakily, at last, "are you gonna write a book?"

Buck's face lightened by degrees until he sported a roguish smile, the familiar, light-hearted look easing the tired lines around his eyes. "I just might keep that in mind. Share my wisdom with the world."

JD grinned, knowing they were all right. He and Buck had a special connection, too, just like Chris and Vin. Not like Chris and Ezra, thanks all the same, but the feelings he and Buck shared were as precious to him in their way as his feelings for Casey. He'd never feel less for Buck no matter how much he came to feel for Casey; he reckoned that must be how it would be for Chris with Vin and Ezra. And he was glad for Chris.

He also felt an unexpected surge of worry. "I hope Ezra don't ever let him down--"

Buck flicked a finger against his cheek so that he looked up and met Buck's serious eyes.

"That's Chris's business. That man knows better'n anyone all the dangers in letting himself love again. And I reckon it's safe to say he's gotten to know Ezra a mite better than any of the rest of us have managed."

 _Love._ Buck had actually said it. A man might love a man just like men loved women. Even a man like Chris Larabee, who was the closest thing to a living hero he'd ever know, might feel like that. He didn't want to even think about what it might be like...in bed...but he thought of the tenderness in the way Chris had held Ezra, and in the kiss he'd pressed to Ezra's shoulder, and some of the queasiness flowed away. Maybe it was possible, after all. And maybe not such a bad thing.

"All right, kid?"

He looked up to see Buck outlined in the sunlit doorway, a warmly reassuring presence that was always there for him. Always. His world righted the last necessary inch to solid ground under his feet.

"Did you know?"

"Nope. Not till Chris arrived today."

"D'you think Vin knew?"

Buck's head, haloed by sunshine, shook slowly. "I dunno. Maybe he wondered. I think that's why he insisted you fetch Chris. Or maybe he knew all along." Buck gave him a tired but warm smile and strode back to the shack.

Watching and listening. That's what Vin did. Maybe he'd better give it another try as he continued on down this road that was longer and wilder than he'd suspected.


End file.
